‘I was terrified.’ Hunter shoots deer, watches as bears pounce on it in Pennsylvania
A moment of triumph turned frightening for one Pennsylvania hunter, when she downed her first deer and watched as a group of bears surrounded it and started eating.
It happened Sunday, Nov. 28, when Jordan Zabinski was hunting with her husband, Mark Zabinski, in the La Jose area, about 100 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. He was on his way with a truck to pick up her deer when the bears showed up.
“Twenty 20 minutes after I shot the deer, four bear come out,” she wrote Nov. 28 on Facebook.
“They threw my deer around like a rag doll. They ripped the tail off and cubs played catch with it. This is definitely one hell of a story, and I’m glad I got it on video or else no one would believe me. ... I was terrified.”
Zabinski’s two videos, recorded from a safe distance, show two bears with their snouts pressed to the carcass and more bears standing nearby. Closer inspection of one video shows there may have been as many as five bears, including two cubs, she says.
The bears apparently did not sense her presence, and they hovered until her husband showed up and started yelling to scare them off.
“The bear only got the tail off by the time he got to me!” she wrote. “It’s my first year hunting, so seeing 4 black bear at once ... I was a little too nervous to even move.”
Her video has been viewed more than 43,000 times since being shared on social media by PA Trophy Takers, a Facebook group devoted to hunting. The page referred to the video as “incredible.”
“Now that’s something to experience. Sorry about your deer Jordan but you don’t see this every day,” the site wrote.
Many commenters also congratulated Zabinski on getting her first deer, but noted they were far more impressed with her subtle handling of a potentially dangerous bear encounter.
“That experience is worth more than any deer. Once in a lifetime,” George Sweitzer Jr. wrote.
As for what became of the deer, Zabinski says: “The meat from the deer was still good! We ate the back straps already, and we’re making jerky and sausage.”
This story was originally published December 3, 2021 at 8:16 AM with the headline "‘I was terrified.’ Hunter shoots deer, watches as bears pounce on it in Pennsylvania."